HUGE Round-Up Post: Groomsmen Attire, Wedding Website, Wedding Rings, and Bridal Accessories!
Hi everyone

! Its been a busy, busy, busy couple of weeks in the wedding planning department, so I figured I'd give you a big round-up post of the things we have accomplished since our Planning Session last month.
Groom's Attire
First off, we got DF's suit for the wedding, as well as narrowed down what his groomsmen will be wearing. Since my bridesmaids are wearing grey dresses, so will the groomsmen. I wanted to go for a more casual, dapper look, as opposed to a more formal wedding look, so we plan to ditch the jackets and go for this type of look:
I absolutely love the suspenders with bow-tie look and it will be very affordable for the guys since all they have to do is rent grey suit pants and get black dress shoes (which I would think most already have). We will be purchasing the bow ties and suspenders for them so that everything will match. George's look will be similar, but instead of wearing suspenders he will be wearing a vest (like in the second picture) and likely a matching jacket for at least part of the day (he mentioned just wearing it for the ceremony and then taking it off for the reception). Here is the suit that George picked out for the wedding:
Its from Express and he purchased all three pieces (pants, vest, and jacket). He only had a black suit, so he really wanted to buy his suit, rather than rent, so that he can mix it up for weddings that we will be surely be going to in the future (we already have 3 this year!).
We also found these bow ties from a shop on Etsy called HoboTies, that we plan to purchase from in the next few weeks:
As of now, the plan is to get 3 grey bow ties for the groomsmen and then George will wear either a mint or purple bow tie. I've ordered samples of the fabrics to see which one/s we like best and will decide from there.
Wedding Website
Our wedding website is finally up and running! Since we only have 25 guests coming, I don't know that anyone has actually looked at it, but we have all of our wedding information, as well as our registries up on there. Here's a screenshot of the design we chose:
And here's a link in case anyone wants to check it out:
https://www.theknot.com/us/lauren-rausch-and-george-becker
I'm unsure of whether or not I want to post it to my Facebook. I'd love for my family who isn't coming to the wedding to be able to see the website, but I also don't want to rub it in anyone's face who may be bitter about not being invited. For now, I've only given the link to those invited.
Wedding Rings
One of the most exciting things that happened recently is that we got our wedding bands last weekend! We are both so thrilled with how our rings came out! George's uncle is a jeweler and owns his own shop here in Central Florida (Plantation Jewelers in Winter Garden, if anyone's interested) and he made both of our rings!
DF's is a black tungsten ring, which is what he really wanted. For those who like the look of tungsten, it is very affordable, so we highly recommend it. Its a very tough metal and we shouldn't ever have any issues with it. It is very heavy though.
My ring is almost an eternity ring (there's just a small part in the back that doesn't have diamonds) and I'm absolutely in love with it. It looks amazing with my engagement ring (other than now my engagement ring doesn't look shiny and new next to it) and I didn't want to take it off! I can't wait until I get to wear it every day!
Excuse my swollen hands and gross nails. I hardly every keep up with my nails anymore and the daily 100-degree weather has been making my fingers swell like crazy.
Bridal Attire
I got my wedding shoes!!! They are from Betsey Johnson's wedding line and I absolutely love them! They came in at a very appropriate time, as just about a week before, we got our first gift from DFTW--the Cinderella shoe bag!
Here's what a stock-photo of the shoes look like since you can't see them too well in my fancy Instagram photo:
I also got a cute bracelet that I plan to wear to the wedding. Nothing fancy by any means (it was $15 at the Icing) but I think it will go nicely with my dress, as I wanted to incorporate pearls for a vintage feel, but also a little bit of bling.
And finally, I'm narrowing down hair accessories for the wedding day. I don't really need too much since I am planning to wear my hair down and with a braid in the back, but these are some of the accessories that I found and really liked:
I sent both pictures to my friend Anna, who is doing my hair and she really liked both, but we will most-likely lean towards the pearl bobby-pins, as I think it will be a little hard to incorporate the comb in with the braid. I will probably pick both up and just try each look when I go in for my hair and makeup trial in October. These are also from the Icing, so not pricey at all.
Just kidding, that's not all. I also purchased my park map bouquets for me and my bridesmaids! I'm super excited about these ever since I saw them on the Roots blog:
I purchased them from Greencycledesigns on Etsy and they should arrive in about 8 weeks. All 4 bouquets will be made from recycled Magic Kingdom park maps, and the Mickey crystals, as well as ribbons covering the stems, will be in our wedding colors: mint, lavender, and silver (because grey crystals would be boring)! I'm incredibly excited to see how these turn out.
Rehearsal Dinner
As of last week, as also booked our rehearsal dinner. We opted to do it off-property to save some money. This isn't a big deal since 90% of our wedding guests are local so everyone has their own transportation. We'll be having our rehearsal dinner at Buca di Beppo, which is a family-style Italian restaurant. DF is obsessed with Italian food so this was a must for him.
They do have a private dining room for rehearsal dinners, so we're going to have our event catered in there. This restaurant is super fun when you go with a big group so I think everyone will love it. And for just under $30 a head, everyone gets a choice of 2 salads, 2 pastas, an entrée, dessert, and unlimited soda/coffee/tea/water. They will also set up a cash bar (I'm paying for their drinks at the wedding, if they want some the night before, they're on their own lol).
Whew, that was quite the ridiculously long update. I told you guys I was busy! We're actually heading back to Franck's in a couple of hours to meet with Kristie for our BEO review. I think we've got everything mostly cut that we need to at this point, so I will updated you on that once we have a final-ish BEO. Byeeeee!